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18. “And They Shall All Be Taught by God”: Wisdom and the Eucharist in John 6
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e i g h t e e n “And They Shall All Be Taught by God” Wisdom and the Eucharist in John 6 Michael Dauphinais John offers a unique view of Jesus Christ. It begins with a miracle of the loaves and fishes, continues with a miracle of Jesus walking on water , and then culminates with the bread of life discourse. Almost all biblical scholars and theologians recognize some connection between the miraculous multiplication of physical bread and the subsequent discourse on the bread of life. But what is the character of that living bread come down from heaven? Is the bread of life simply equivalent to Jesus’ wisdom from on high, or is it the Eucharistic flesh of Jesus? Although some contemporary biblical scholars have seen these as mutually exclusive options, St. Thomas leads us to contemplate the inner connections of the mysteries of Incarnate Wisdom and the Eucharist. RAYMOND BROWN’S BIFURCATION OF THE BREAD OF LIFE DISCOURSE: TO DISTINGUISH IN ORDER TO DIVIDE The late Catholic biblical scholar Raymond Brown, in his magisterial two-volume commentary on John in the Anchor Bible Series, emphasizes the distinction between the sapiential (wisdom) and Eucharistic meanings of the overall bread of life discourse. Brown discerns in the present bread of life discourse two discourses that were later compiled together. Thus John :–0 forms the original discourse . :1– is a later discourse on the bread of life. The first is primarily sapiential in character, although it may have some Eucharistic undertones. The latter is primarily Eucharistic. The original discourse according to Brown—:–0—begins with Jesus saying, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not 312 = hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” The original discourse ends with Jesus saying, “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die” (:0). In this first discourse, to eat the bread of life is to believe in Jesus. As Jesus says in :–, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.” Jesus is the wisdom from on high who has come down from heaven so that by believing in him we may have eternal life. Brown argues that the meaning of this original discourse is primarily sapiential. Brown sees in John :1– a different discourse. Here Jesus begins by saying , “I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Brown admits that this second discourse is clearly Eucharistic in tone. The bread here signifies the Eucharistic flesh of Jesus. “Truly , truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (:). This second discourse, according to Brown, ends with the verse, “He who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven; he who eats this bread will live for ever” (:). In both discourses, consuming the bread come down from heaven results in eternal life. In the first discourse, the bread of life is simply Jesus himself and his teaching. In the second discourse, the bread of life is clearly the Eucharistic flesh of Jesus. Brown argues that since the sapiential and Eucharistic means are divergent, that what we now see as one discourse was originally two. Brown goes so far to hypothesize that the second, overtly Eucharistic discourse stemmed from a tradition within the Johannine community about the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples. Such a hypothesis about where the second discourse originally came from cannot be proved correct or false. But Brown clearly states that there is no way to interpret accurately the present discourse in John as a united whole. What he has distinguished, Brown has no ability to unite. OPTIONS AVAILABLE FROM ST. THOMAS Since St. Thomas focuses his attention on the canonized form of the biblical text, he accepts the unity of the present form of the bread of life discourse. What kind of unity does he discern? Is it a false unity that denies some of the distinctive elements highlighted by Brown? For instance, does St. Thomas force an exclusively Eucharistic meaning on the whole text and thereby deny the importance of belief in Jesus as the...
